The Show Must Go On?? was the seventh episode of Season 4 of the The Brady Bunch TV series, also the 79th overall episode in the series. Written by Harry Winkler, the episode, which was directed by Jack Donohue, originally aired on ABC-TV on November 3, 1972.

Contents

Synopsis

Greg and Marcia recruit their parents to participate in the upcoming Family Frolics Night at school.

Summary

Greg and Marcia each enlist their parents to perform with them in the Westdale High School's talent revue, Family Night Frolics. Carol and Marcia perform the featured song "Together (Wherever We Go)" from the musical Gypsy, and Greg and Mike do a reading of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Day is Done. The reading is a unique interpretation complete with visual gags, bad puns, and a rubber chicken. In the subplot, Alice and Sam (Allan Melvin) break up, but solve their differences during the talent revue.

Storyline

It's time for Westdale High's annual Family Night Frolics, a fundraising revue styled show where student/parent pairs perform. Marcia is scared to tell Carol that she volunteered the two of them to sing a duet for the show. Carol doesn't want to do it, despite being a good singer, as she is scared to perform to a paying audience of her mother peers, but she is guilted into it in part by Mike, who feels that every parent should do his or her part. He regrets doing so when he hears that Greg has promised the show organizer, Mrs. Tuttle, that the two of them would also perform.

Mike, who feels he has no performing arts skills, is no less comforted when Mrs. Tuttle wants him to do a dramatic reading of a specific Longfellow poem accompanied by Greg on the guitar, as the performing arts value of the poem is as much fun as watching paint dry. Mike has to figure out a way to salvage his and Greg's performance and thus their pride or risk the audience asking for their money back, that is if the audience stays awake during the reading. Meanwhile, the rest of the family goes to extreme lengths to sell tickets for the show. And Alice feels like Sam going to a bowling practice instead of taking her to the show is a relationship breaker. A pair of blond angels may use their magic to help in the Sam/Alice relationship situation.